Dear Readers,

Wednesday, May 06, 2009

I've been remiss in not talking about the awesomeness that is Britain's new poet Laureate crashing her way into the very old boys' club. It is truly awesome. Anyway, here is a roundup of posts and excerpts from my google reader feeds (note, all of the snippets are from the sites, not me):

...CarolAnnDuffy, 53, has been appointed poet laureate of Britain, a prestigious 341-year-old position previously held by men like John Dryden, Alfred Tennyson, William Wordsworth, Cecil Day-Lewis and Ted Hughes. Not only is Duffy the first woman to hold the position, she is the first Scot, the first mother, and the first lesbian.

...CarolAnnDuffy is that rare thing - a poet whose work is loved by children and adults alike, critics as much as the public. Now, a decade after she was passed over for the job, she is to become the first woman poet laureate. Here, in an exclusive interview, she talks about Queen, country - and the free sherry

...laureate is CarolAnnDuffy, nearly three-and-a-half centuries after John Dryden was anointed by King Charles II to the nation's foremost literary position. Duffy, 53, is also the first Scot and the first openly gay writer to be poet laureate. (Dryden, incidentally, holds the dubious distinction of being the only poet laureate to be sacked, ...)

...CarolAnnDuffy has been appointed Britain's first female poet laureate after a 341-year run of men. That's an awful long monopoly, but England, not to mention poetry, has rarely been accused of being quick to change. (Elizabeth Barrett Browning was considered for the post in 1850, but she lost out to Alfred Tennyson.) Duffy first got attention ...

...The poet CarolAnnDuffy was chosen as poet laureate of England today, the first female poet named laureate since the post was first created over 340 years ago. Duffy follows former laureate Andrew Motion, and according to the NY Times, she will serve in the post for 10 years. The first honoree was Edmund Spenser...

The Egalitarian Bookworm

"I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book!—When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library."-Caroline Bingley

Jane

"Provided that nothing like useful knowledge could be gained from them, provided they were all story and no reflection, she had never any objection to books at all."-- Austen on Northanger Abbey's Catherine Morland

More Jane

"I have done with expecting any course of steady reading from Emma. She will never submit to anything requiring industry and patience and a subjection of the fancy to the understanding."--Mr. Knightley on Emma